No, I'm assuming that the public is not reliably informed, can't be expected to be informed, and don't have the time to be informed.
They therefore are only able to make decisions based on morality or not at all. If we can state: we shouldn't kill. Then no matter how much the government wants to sell weapons or impose a system on others, there will be no excuse to do so.
How many people are looking through those telescopes for how long? He strong have the telescopes been? Through the human lens, every look since we have been here provides us with evidence of what causes harm and what doesn't. Humans are subjected to limited harms. Saying these several things are global harms is not too hard and then applying safeguards that the ever changing laws may try to break so that a few may benefit by causing harms is not too hard to come by.
But you say we can't. This is nonsense. It is nonsense which leaves us exposed to the long and globally understood harms, that you state are objective.
If you wish to maintain there are thousands of trivialities which may never be understood, fine, can't we have the global ones in place while defining the more obscure ones?
Metsfanmax
Killing a human should not be worse than killing a pig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will go to defend their core beliefs.
And I'm saying that morality is contextual and complicated and we've hardly begun really looking at it in scientific ways. An action that is morally good in one context may be morally evil in another context, or more usually it contains elements of both good and evil and the harm caused must be balanced against the well being achieved. If people don't have time to be reliably informed about politics, what makes you think they have time to be reliably informed about objective morality? We all have moral instincts sure, but these disagree from person to person and are more important to some than others. I would suggest that "moral intuition" is just the special name we give "common sense" when talking about morality, and we know that our "common sense" can be horribly flawed when describing what is actually real.
How long have we been looking at the sky full stop? If you're going back to the very bsic primal moral instincts of our deep ancestors then I can equally go back to every time one of them looked up into the sky. The only difference is the tools they use, both physical and conceptual tools, and we are developing new tools for both morality and astrophysics all the time.
The problem with wanting broad sweeping generalities is that you generally sacrifice accuracy the broader the scope gets. To use another physics example, Newton's laws of motion work pretty well most of the time (almost 100% under 50mph on the Earth's surface), but get up near the speed of light or go down to the sub-microscopic levels or up to the super-heavy black holes and things happen that break those rules. So yes we can have some basic principles, but we must be aware that there is margin for error that gets wider the broader the principle and we should judge every specific situation as precisely as possible and practical.
crispybits wrote:Also, eternal is a function of time (existing for all time) and time is a property of the universe, but not necessarily of whatever happens outside the universe. Until it can be proven that time exists outside of the universe then the word eternal is meaningless when used in that context.
No, the definition of eternal is "lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning." If It is outside the time stream, then it never began or will end.
That's not what he said (though I'm willing to believe his answer may be yes when he comes back)
He said "the total energy of the system remains constant". Therefore if we start with 0 and we create 1 and -1, the total energy is still 0 and it is not a violation of the first law of thermodynamics.
If we start with 1 we can have millionths that add to 1, or thousandths or any number of fractions that equal 1. It's the conservation of total energy. If zero went to 1, it wouldn't be constant.
I don't know where he is going with this though and cannot say much more.
In reply to your post to me, is there a country in the world that allows murder? Enslavement? Injury? False accusations?
Certainly we can find a few more to agree on while we wait.
Metsfanmax
Killing a human should not be worse than killing a pig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will go to defend their core beliefs.
_sabotage_ wrote:Andy, when has law equated to morality?
Wall Street has been allowed by law to create a massive derivative bubble backed by taxpayers money. If this was morality, then everyone else should be able to create cash at will and expect it to be backed by taxes. Morality applies to all parties equally.
Since Wall Street has a greater ability to influence government, they are granted permission to steal from the public. They stole roughly $3,000,000 from my grandma last time around by cooperating with the rating companies so that her retirement funds would be able to purchase the banks toxic products.
Since property rights are a key factor in social stability, the government has not only lead to the instability of society, they have formalized it. I.e. lacking a moral framework, the rich may conspire with the powerful and degenerate civilization.
While all religions more or less have the same basic principles, atheist don't. For any religious person, they might interpret stealing differently, but stealing in itself is bad. An atheist may say that they know better and though it is stealing, knowing better, they know it isn't bad.
If we were to base morality on law, then it would soon vanish. If one group is held to a standard not applied to all, morals don't exist.
When has religion equated to morality? In fact I posit the exact opposite. The religious are the morally corrupted ones and the atheists are the testament of reason.
Such eloquence and reasoning. Jesus would agree with you to a certain extent:
23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5 “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14]
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.
37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’[c]”
(Personally, I think the Church edited the first few lines.)
Metsfanmax
Killing a human should not be worse than killing a pig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will go to defend their core beliefs.
I think the gospels were mainly written about about 50BC to 70AD. The Romans reedited them and then tried to solidify their hold on them by destroying the originals. Paul's letters were written in about this time to maintain Jesus's sanctity while allowing for the Romans free reign to promulgate their moralistic ideals. They were reedited again in the early fourth century.
As for memory, I don't think that was as much an issue. The religious sects were literate and diligent, the censors have just been more diligent.
Metsfanmax
Killing a human should not be worse than killing a pig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will go to defend their core beliefs.
If we start with 1 we can have millionths that add to 1, or thousandths or any number of fractions that equal 1. It's the conservation of total energy. If zero went to 1, it wouldn't be constant.
I don't know where he is going with this though and cannot say much more.
In reply to your post to me, is there a country in the world that allows murder? Enslavement? Injury? False accusations?
Certainly we can find a few more to agree on while we wait.
If I start with $0 in my bank account, and I take out an (interest free for the sake of argument) $100 loan, then in toal I still have $0. My bank account says I have $100 and my loan account says I have -$100. Similarly when we calculate (imprecisely but as best we can) the total energy value of the universe we come out very very very close to 0. If you could "melt" the universe down to it's most basic "stuff", the amount of positive stuff and the amount of negative stuff (matter and antimatter for example) seems to point to something with 0 total energy. It's not hard science yet, it's still very experimental and more work is definitely needed, but it's the picture as best we can see it right now.
The problem with your second question is definitions. If we define murder as "unlawful premeditated killing" or similar then the very act of defining it as unlawful means that if a country did exist that lacked a murder law murder would be impossible in that country, because it could never be unlawful. See this is the kind of problem you run into when you continue, despite me saying it many times in the last two days, to conflate law and morality. I'll say it one more time - deal with moral points by using moral counter-points and stop with the legality stuff because we're not talking about legislating morality, we're talking about discovering what it is to start with... We need to figure out how we define it and measure it and categorise it before we even begin to think about ways to enforce it in whatever contexts...
Is killing people wrong? - it depends
Is owning people wrong? - it depends
Is injuring people wrong? - it depends
Is lying wrong? - it depends
Without context and more specific details none of these questions are answerable any other way.
_sabotage_ wrote:I think the gospels were mainly written about about 50BC to 70AD. The Romans reedited them and then tried to solidify their hold on them by destroying the originals. Paul's letters were written in about this time to maintain Jesus's sanctity while allowing for the Romans free reign to promulgate their moralistic ideals. They were reedited again in the early fourth century.
As for memory, I don't think that was as much an issue. The religious sects were literate and diligent, the censors have just been more diligent.
There were also a lot of forgeries being made around those times. The entire last bit of the gospel of Mark (I forget exactly where from) is now considered a forgery. Several of Paul's letters are now considered forgeries. Many other parts of the New Testament are now considered much later additions or forgeries. There is evidence of editing of the bible even happening in modern times to support the pro-life stance (a 60s bible that uses the term "miscarries" and a 70s version of the same bible that uses the words "kills the unborn child" from memory - I can find the exact details if you're interested but that's pretty close at least)
(Also how do you get a gospel start being written in 50BC? I presume you mean 50AD?)
What has gone wrong with the grand American experiment in "ordered liberty"? The progressive answer is that America has failed to live up to its full promise of inclusiveness and equality--likely the result of corporate greed and white male ruling elites. The mainstream conservative or libertarian's reply points to the Warren Court, the 1960's, or a loss of Constitutional rectitude. Christopher Ferrara, in Liberty, the God That Failed, offers an entirely different answer. In a counter-narrative of unique power and scope, he unmasks the order promised as a sham; the liberty guaranteed, a chimera. In his telling, the false god of a new political order--Liberty--was born in thought long before America's founding, and gained increasing devotion as it slowly amassed power during the first century of the nation's existence. Today it reveals its full might, as we bear the weight of its oppressive decrees, and experience the emptiness of the secular order it imposes upon us.
Ferrara destroys multiple myths constructed by the secular state with a relentless uncovering of truths hidden by both liberal and conservative/libertarian accounts of what has gone wrong. In this brilliant retelling of American history and political life, the author asks us to open our eyes to harsh realities, but also to the possibilities for a rightly ordered society and the true liberty that can still be ours.
I should point out that science would have continued with or without the government overthrowing secularists of the age of enlightenment. I'm pretty sure that the Irish would have had a much happier life not being constantly screwed over by the Papist Paranoid Enlightened English. As would have a the Africans imported to the New World by these same people for chattel slavery, and so on and so forth.
Crispy, You are referring to the post resurrection bit.
No 50BC. I think the real Jesus was the "wise teacher" of the Essenes and was reformatted for Roman purposes. This is a rather long discussion.
As for your previous post, as I have said many times, I'm not equating morality to law. I'm equating morality to governing law. Therefore the world can agree that murder is wrong, and disagree on what constitutes murder. Eventually, as time goes by and valid comparisons are made between how the law helps the country, the laws can be refined but still be governed by the morality.
Last edited by _sabotage_ on Wed Feb 04, 2015 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Metsfanmax
Killing a human should not be worse than killing a pig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will go to defend their core beliefs.
Didn't see the Greeks conquering Israel, making of with their sacred works, putting their royal family as the first popes, inventing a Roman prophet, or formalizing the definition of the gospels over time, censoring any dissenting works, and it's not called the Holy Greek Church.
Metsfanmax
Killing a human should not be worse than killing a pig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will go to defend their core beliefs.
The primary translation of the Law,Prophets,and Writings of Jerusalem was the "Septuagint" and a significant number of foreign Jewish communities were in the east, in Greek culture dominated areas. A significant number of the letters reserved in the final canon of scriptures are to the Greek speaking churches.
Christianity was never popular in Rome, given its atheistic nature. It was a direct threat to the government. The first bishops of Rome were definitely not from the government. If I recall correctly, the church in Rome didn't become popular until all hell broke loose and it was those simpleton Christian bishops who actually prevented Rome from being totally destroyed. While "Church Latin" would become the standard once civilization as we know it collapsed, it was a far cry from "Classical Latin" and was looked down by anyone with proper learning at the time.
Meanwhile, the Church would explode after legalization by Constantine who ruled in the east (or the Greek speaking portion of the former Roman Empire). All of the major Ecumenical Councils occurred there. Constantinople eventually declared itself second to Rome. In time in the west both the liturgy and the scriptures would be translated to the vernacular Latin language from the Greek.
This continues until the schism in the 11th century. "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" comes from Constantinople in A.D. 381.
I'm engaged in way too many discussions at the moment, I'm not trying to shirk, but this would be a long one as well. If I don't leave the site due to spousal pressure (I'm supposed to be playing out my last few games and then I'm out of here), I look forward to having this conversation at some time in the near future.
Metsfanmax
Killing a human should not be worse than killing a pig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will go to defend their core beliefs.
You must all remember that Greece invented western civilization, including largely influencing Christianity. Plus, the inscription on the cross was written in Greek (and Hebrew and Latin, but who cares about those two especially since the Romans just stole all the Greek's stuff).
notyou2 wrote:Personally I think it was all written 300 to 400 years after it occurred. It's amazing the memories these people have over centuries.
_sabotage_ wrote:I think the gospels were mainly written about about 50BC to 70AD. The Romans reedited them and then tried to solidify their hold on them by destroying the originals. Paul's letters were written in about this time to maintain Jesus's sanctity while allowing for the Romans free reign to promulgate their moralistic ideals. They were reedited again in the early fourth century.
sabatage is correct. Opposed to many other historical writings (such as Plato and Aristotle), the Bible is much more likely to be accurate from that point of view. The most recent written copies of those were hundreds of years after that person had lived, and only a few copies were found, yet we still believe that they are true. However, the Bible was only written 20years after the fact, and hundreds of original copies were found, and people refuse to accept it.
blackdragon1661 wrote:sabatage is correct. Opposed to many other historical writings (such as Plato and Aristotle), the Bible is much more likely to be accurate from that point of view. The most recent written copies of those were hundreds of years after that person had lived, and only a few copies were found, yet we still believe that they are true. However, the Bible was only written 20years after the fact, and hundreds of original copies were found, and people refuse to accept it.
what the hell do Plato and Aristotle have to do with this?
thegreekdog wrote:You must all remember that Greece invented western civilization, including largely influencing Christianity. Plus, the inscription on the cross was written in Greek (and Hebrew and Latin, but who cares about those two especially since the Romans just stole all the Greek's stuff).
Why it's Catholic Christianity, of course. 
